Fever at Dawn

by Fever at Dawn (retail) (epub)

  It’s terrible the way they watch over us here. We have to keep to a strict daily routine: with silent rest times and other fun and games. The chief tyrant is Márta, the Mickey Mouse–like head nurse, Dr Lindholm’s Hungarian wife. She’s always fussing around us.

  The Mickey Mouse–like head nurse stomped across the garden. It was five minutes’ walk to the caretaker’s office, and Márta’s anger grew with every step.

  She practically tore the office door off its hinges.

  Four days earlier, not least as a result of Klára Köves’s patience, Harry had regained his lost masculinity. Although Klára went away slightly disappointed, they agreed to go on writing to each other. Harry, on the other hand, had worked up an appetite. This time it was big-boned Frida, the daytime caretaker—nicknamed ‘baby elephant’ by the men—who took his fancy. Harry meditated on the devious whims of his desire. It seemed that the days when only pale, wasp-waisted girls made an impression on him were inexplicably over.

  When Márta appeared like an avenging angel in the caretaker’s office, Frida and Harry (in his pyjamas) hadn’t got past cuddling. But there was no time to break away from each other. Harry was grateful that the conversation took place in Swedish, of which he understood next to nothing.

  ‘Did you sell Miklós cigarettes, Frida?’

  Frida’s plump arms held Harry in a tight clasp, which she didn’t relax for a moment. ‘Just two or three.’

  ‘This is your last chance! If I catch you again I’ll report you!’ shouted Márta, and she turned on her heel, slamming the door behind her.

  Of course, Frida was not just being generous by handing out cigarettes. The tiny mark-up she added went to supplement her meagre wages.

  Honestly, I like a man who smokes, but you’re an exception now. Please don’t overdo it. I don’t smoke, by the way.

  Lili came into the ward like a sleepwalker. She sat down on her bed without a word, radiating despair. Judit, who was in bed reading Tess of the d’Urbervilles for the third time, closed the book and sat up.

  Sára was pouring herself a cup of tea. She hurried over to Lili. ‘Has anything happened? ‘

  Lili, sitting there with drooping shoulders, didn’t answer.

  Sára put her hand on Lili’s forehead. ‘Your temperature’s up again. Where’s the thermometer?’

  Judit got out of bed to get the thermometer, which they kept in a dish on the windowsill. Lili let the girls lift her arm then press it tightly to her side. They sat opposite her on the bed and waited.

  The wind beat against the windowpane. Lili’s soft voice sounded like a lone violin over the beat of its thrumming and creaking. ‘Someone reported me.’

  Judit straightened her back slightly. ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve just come from the Red Cross woman. She told me I’d been lying…’ Lili stared at her slippers.

  Silence. Sára remembered her name. ‘Ann-Marie Arvidsson?’ she queried.

  ‘…That she knows Miklós isn’t my cousin, he’s an unknown letter-writer…’

  Judit started to pace the room. ‘Where did she get that from?’ ‘…and she’s refusing to give permission. He can’t come. Can’t come!’

  Sára kneeled down in front of Lili and kissed both her hands. ‘We’ll work something out. Get a hold on yourself, your temperature’s up.’

  Lili couldn’t look up. ‘She showed me a letter. It was written here, by one of us.’

  ‘Who on earth?’ Judit Gold was shouting now.

  ‘She didn’t say. She only told me it said that I had lied. Miklós isn’t my cousin, as I had claimed, and that’s why she is refusing permission for his visit.’

  ‘We’ll apply again,’ Sára said. ‘We’ll go on putting in requests to receive visitors until they’re sick of the sight of them.’

  ‘Dearest Lili!’ Judit collapsed at Lili’s feet.

  At last, Lili raised her head and looked at her friends. ‘Who could hate me so much?’

  Sára got up and took the thermometer from under Lili’s arm. ‘Thirty-nine point two. Get into bed this minute. We’ll have to tell Svensson.’

  The two girls laid Lili on her back and covered her with the eiderdown. She seemed incapable of moving on her own. They had to treat her like a baby.

  ‘He’s attracted to you,’ remarked Judit by way of distraction.

  Sára didn’t understand at first. ‘Who’s attracted to Lili?’

  ‘Svensson. You should see the looks he gives her.’

  ‘Come off it!’ Sára scoffed.

  But Judit couldn’t leave it alone. ‘I’m never wrong in these matters.’

  Miklós was standing on the iron girders of the bridge over the railway, staring at the tangle of tracks that snaked their way towards the horizon. The sky was steel grey.

  A figure came into sight on the road. It was running. At the bridge it climbed the iron steps two at a time. Even so, Miklós only noticed it was Harry when he was standing beside him, puffing and panting.

  ‘You going to jump?’

  Miklós smiled. ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Your eyes. And the way you rushed off after we got the mail.’

  A goods train pulled away below them. Its thick black smoke enveloped them like sorrow. Miklós grasped the bridge railings.

  ‘No. I’m not going to jump.’

  Harry leaned his elbows on the railings next to Miklós. They watched the departing train. When it had shrunk to a narrow streak in the distance, Miklós took a crumpled letter out of his pocket and handed it to Harry.

  ‘I received this.’

  Dear Sir,

  In answer to your notice in today’s Szabad Nép, I regret to inform you that your mother and father were the victims of a bombing raid on the Laxenburg camp in Austria on 12 February 1945…I knew them very well. It was me who guided them to the best place in the camp, the Coffee Factory, where they would be treated as humans and could get decent food and accommodation. I’m extremely sorry that I am the bearer of such sad news.

  Andor Rózsa

  Miklós had a confused and contradictory relationship with his father. The owner of Gambrinus, the famous bookshop in Debrecen, was a domineering character, prone to shouting and often to violence too. He didn’t spare his wife—and he didn’t even need to be drunk to attack her. Unfortunately he drank a lot. In spite of this, my grandmother often came into the bookshop with a sandwich or an apple or a pear for him.

  My father always remembered a wonderful afternoon in spring when, as a small boy, perched on the top rung of the bookstore ladder, he became so engrossed in Alexei Tolstoy’s Peter the Great that, spellbound by the intrigues of the tsar’s court, his ears flaming red, he forgot all about the time.

  In the evening his mother showed up, wearing a wide-brimmed maroon hat. ‘Miki, it’s seven o’clock. You forgot to come home for dinner. What are you reading?’

  He looked up. The woman in the wide-brimmed maroon hat was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place her.

  Harry folded the letter and gave it back to Miklós without a word. They leaned against the railings and kept their eyes on the tracks. Some birds were circling overhead.

  Dear Miklós,

  I am terribly sorry that the letter from Szolnok contained such dreadful news. I can’t find the words to comfort you.

  That afternoon Miklós rode a bike to the cemetery in Avesta. It started to rain. He wandered aimlessly along the headstones, sometimes leaning over an inscription to try to sound out the Swedish name.

  I’m sorry I’m so cold and that I’m taking this calamity so damn hard. Yesterday I went to the local cemetery. I hoped perhaps my loved ones, at the bottom of a mass grave, might be stirred by a cosmic memory… That’s all.

  Lili sat up in bed. It was late at night; the bulb above the door gave off a faint light. Her forehead was drenched in sweat. In the next bed Sára was lying uncovered in the foetal position. Lili slipped out of bed and kneeled beside her.

  ‘Are you asleep?
’

  Sára turned over, as if she had been expecting her. ‘I can’t sleep either!’ she whispered back.

  In a moment Lili was lying beside her; she held Sára’s hand. Together they watched the strange patterns on the ceiling made by the birch tree swaying in the wind.

  ‘He got some news,’ Lili said. ‘About his parents. They were bombed.’

  Sára’s eyes flickered; she could see the letter lying on Lili’s bedside table. ‘Good God!’

  ‘I’ve worked it out. It’s 373 days since I had any news of my mother or my father.’

  With wide eyes they stared at the windblown expressionist images above them.

  Seven

  THE MAIL van arrived in Avesta soon after lunch. A man in a fur-collared coat jumped out, went round to the back, propped the door open and sorted the letters. It usually took him a few minutes. Then he went over to the yellow letterbox—which looked more like a large suitcase—opened the door at the bottom with a key and scooped all the outgoing mail into an empty canvas sack. After that he tipped all the incoming mail into the letterbox.

  It was part of my father’s daily routine to monitor this tedious ritual from beginning to end. He had to be absolutely convinced that his letter—as a result of some insidious plot—didn’t fall out of the canvas sack.

  Lili, dear,

  I’m sure that, if not today, then tomorrow, you will get good news. The letter is sitting in your father’s pocket, and he’s waiting for the chance to try out this more or less impossible feat of sending a letter to Sweden.

  In the Eksjö hospital there was one place you could smoke without getting caught. It was a bathroom on the second floor, which was used every morning for taking showers, but was then empty until the evening.

  Judit Gold smoked at least half a pack a day; that’s where all her pocket money went. But Sára, too, smoked three cigarettes a day. Lili went along to keep them company.

  Sára inhaled pensively. ‘We could go into town this afternoon. I begged for permission,’ she announced after a while.

  Judit was sitting on the edge of the shower cubicle, her legs drawn up under her. ‘What for?’

  ‘We could get a photo of Lili taken for Miklós.’

  Lili was shocked. ‘God forbid! He’ll take one look and flee.’

  Judit could blow excellent smoke rings. ‘That’s a good idea. A photo of the three of us, so we can remember all this, later on.’

  ‘Later on when?’ asked Sára.

  ‘One day, when we’re somewhere else. When we’re happy.’

  They meditated on this.

  Then Lili said, ‘I’m ugly. I don’t want a photo.’

  Sára smacked her hand. ‘You’re stupid, my friend, not ugly.’

  Judit smiled enigmatically, her eyes following the smoke rings until they reached the ventilator.

  In the post office Miklós leaned against the glass cubicle. He spoke in German to prevent any misunderstanding.

  ‘I’d like to send a telegram.’

  The clerk, who also wore glasses, gave him an encouraging look. ‘Address?’ she asked.

  ‘Eksjö, Utlänningsläger, Korungsgården 7.’

  She started to fill in the form. ‘Message?’

  ‘Two words. Two Hungarian words. I’ll spell them.’

  She took offence at that. ‘Just say them, and I’ll write them down.’

  Miklós breathed in. He pronounced the words clearly, syllable by syllable, in his melodious Hungarian. ‘Sze-ret-lek, Li-li.’

  The girl shook her head. Quite a language. ‘Spell them, please.’

  Miklós went letter by letter. They progressed patiently. Then they got stuck. Whereupon Miklós reached under the glass, grabbed the girl’s right hand and tried to guide her pencil.

  It wasn’t easy. At the capital L, the girl threw down her pencil and shoved the form across to my father. ‘You write it.’

  Miklós crossed out the mishmash and in his gorgeous, swirling script wrote in Hungarian: I love you, Lili!

  He pushed the form back.

  The clerk look nonplussed at the unfamiliar word. ‘What does it mean?’

  Miklós hesitated. ‘Are you married, miss?’

  ‘I’m engaged.’

  ‘Oh! Congratulations. Well, it means…it means…’

  He knew exactly how to translate into German the simplest and most beautiful declaration in the world. Even so he was reluctant to give himself away.

  The girl was adding up. ‘That’ll be two kronor. So, are you going to tell me?’

  Miklós suddenly lost his nerve. He turned pale. ‘Give it back, please!’ he shouted at her. ‘Give it back!’

  She shrugged and pushed the form across the counter. Miklós grabbed it and tore it to pieces. He felt utterly stupid and cowardly. How could he explain? Instead he grinned in embarrassment, nodded at the girl and fled the post office.

  Late that evening the men, wrapped in their blankets, sat around the wooden table in the courtyard. Many of them had their eyes closed in the drowsy silence, or stared vacantly at the bare red-brick wall opposite.

  Miklós was standing with his back against the wall, his eyes closed, as if he were asleep.

  I won’t send any new poems now, just a sonnet. I’ve got bigger plans: I’m working out the plot for a novel. It’s about twelve people—men, women, children, German, French and Hungarian Jews, cultured people and peasants—travelling in various railway freight wagons to a German concentration camp. From the security of life to certain death. That would be the first twelve chapters. The next twelve would describe the moment of liberation. It’s still rather vague, but I’m very keen on the idea.

  Pál Jakobovits—who couldn’t have been much more than thirty, though his hands were constantly shaking and the doctors no longer comforted him by saying that one day he would get better—rocked back and forth mumbling: ‘Dear God, hear my prayers. Dear God, send me a girl, a beautiful dark girl, let her be dark, a beautiful blonde girl, let her be blonde.’

  Tibor Hirsch, radio technician and photographer’s assistant, could only take so much. From the other end of the table he lashed out at Jakobovits. ‘You make yourself ridiculous with that prayer.’

  ‘I can pray for whatever I like.’

  ‘You’re not a kid any more, Jakobovits. You’re over thirty.’

  Jakobovits looked down. He grasped his left hand in his right as if somehow to stop the shaking. ‘What’s it got to do with you?’

  ‘A man of thirty doesn’t drool over women.’

  ‘What does he do then?’ Jakobovits yelled. ‘Jerk off?’

  ‘Don’t be vulgar.’

  Jakobovits sank his nails into his arm to overcome the cursed shaking. ‘What does a man of thirty do?’ he wailed. ‘I’m waiting for the answer!’

  ‘He stifles his desires. He asks for bromide. He waits his turn.’

  Jakobovits thumped the table. ‘I’m not waiting any more! I’ve waited enough.’ He rushed into the barracks.

  Standing at the wall, Miklós winced. He kept his eyes shut.

  Lili, dearest,

  I would swear like hell if I weren’t so ashamed. That helps me cope with things in the way crying helps girls. We’re getting dreadfully out of hand here. I’d like to get hold of a book by August Bebel for you, Woman and Socialism. I hope I’ll manage it.

  Lili was curled up under her eiderdown, sobbing. It was past midnight. Sára woke up to the sound of her weeping and climbed out of bed. She lifted the eiderdown and started to stroke Lili’s hair.

  ‘Why are you crying?’

  ‘No reason.’

  ‘Did you have a bad dream?’

  Sára got into bed beside Lili. They stared at the ceiling—this was becoming a habit. And then Judit Gold appeared hovering over them.

  ‘Is there room for me too?’

  The two girls made room, and Judit slipped in with them.

  ‘Who is this Bebel fellow?’ asked Lili.

  Judit made a face.
‘Some sort of writer.’

  Sára sat up. This was her field. At times like this she acted like a schoolmistress and even wagged her index finger. ‘Not “some sort of writer”! He was a wonderful person.’

  ‘Apparently he wrote a book, Woman and Socialism.’ Lili dried her eyes.

  Judit, who was irritated by Sára’s schoolmarmy manner, and in any case loathed left-wing thinking, couldn’t help being sarcastic. ‘Judging by the title I’ll be rushing off to read it. Try stopping me!’

  ‘It’s Bebel’s finest book. I learned a lot from it,’ Sára insisted.

  Judit gave Lili’s arm a squeeze under the eiderdown. But since she never allowed herself to be beaten in literary debates she opened a new front. ‘I’ll bet your poet keeps stuffing your head with leftist ideas.’

  ‘He wants to send me this book as soon as he can.’

  ‘Learn chunks of it by heart. That’ll impress him.’

  Sára was still sitting up with her index finger raised. ‘In Woman and Socialism Bebel claims that in a just society women have equal rights with men. In love, in war, in everything.’

  ‘Bebel is a prat. He never had a wife.’ Judit gave a scathing smile. ‘No doubt he had syphilis.’

  This made Sára see red. All sorts of retorts churned around in her head, but she couldn’t choose the right one. So she lay down again.

  I can’t wait to receive the book. Sára has read it already, but she’ll happily read it again.

  In Avesta the patients had been given two board games and a chess set. The instructions for the board games were in Swedish and the games themselves seemed rather primitive, so after trying to play them once the men gave up.

  The chess set, on the other hand, they fought over. Litzman and Jakobovits were the best players. Apparently Litzman had been chess champion in his home town. He and Jakobovits played for money, and this gave them certain prerogatives over the board. Litzman gave a running commentary on the game for the benefit of the onlookers. He picked up the bishop, drew circles with it in the air and chanted, ‘I’ll ta-ha-ha-hake it! Che-he-heck!’